Safe sport: break the silence, take action for prevention

According to Council of Europe statistics, nearly one in five children in Europe is a victim of sexual abuse. In the majority of cases, the abusers are trusted people in the family, the school, or other areas of social life. For Julian Jappert, Director General of Sport and Citizenship, making sport safe for children is an essential aspect of sport integrity.

Although sport is a means to personal fulfilment and freedom, it can also be an area where cruel words, inappropriate behaviour and reprehensible actions can take place. Bullying, for example, is not unknown in the world of sport. There are various reasons for this, stemming partly from the nature of sport itself (an activity where physical contact is often necessary, where physical violence and injuries are more easily tolerated) and from the way it is traditionally organised (male domination, power relationship between coach and athlete, group effect, availability of at-risk situations, and so on).

Gathering. Alerting.Support.

This reality, which was ignored for a long time, is now taken into account by both public and sporting authorities. Solutions have been put forward. Prevention tools have been developed to help everyone to understand these problems and know how to respond to them. People listen more, too. Administrative, judicial and disciplinary procedures have been put in place to strengthen the controls, ensure that complaints are followed up, and prosecute the perpetrators. However, there is still a lot to be done, because combating sexual abuse requires removing the taboos surrounding the athlete, the body and the values (positive and negative) that sport can convey. In our opinion, it also demands a re-evaluation of practices, habits, and postures, in order to protect other people and oneself. Organisations also need to change, so that the occurrence of such acts is reduced to a minimum, and when they do happen, to make it easier to deal with them.

At Sport and Citizenship, we think that the construction of safe sport is an essential condition for preserving the integrity of sport. To do this we are taking action to:

• Revise and reinforce sports federations’ ethics charters, so that they specifically include the prevention of all forms of violence and abuse.
• Help sports clubs to develop a rigorous procedure when the alarm is given over potential cases of sexual abuse, around the three words “Gather, Alert, Support”. Gather the statements of the victims. Alert the competent bodies. Support the victims.
• Create national bodies responsible for monitoring the implementation of measures and ensuring respect for these, like the Signal Sports cell in the French Ministry for Sport.
• Build a common resource center for training courses and training tools on ethics and the prevention of violence, freely accessible to professionals and volunteers in sport.

Cet article a été publié dans la revue Sport et Citoyenneté n°57 : Protéger l’intégrité du sport